Echoes
by Unspoken Tragedy
Summary: And how could he answer that? That one question that had lain between them all these years, yet had never been voiced. Severus had never before asked him why.


**Title: Echoes**

**Author: Unspoken Tragedy**

**Rating: PG**

**Spoilers: All Five Books, maybe.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything Harry Potter. Or the game 'Red light, green light'. Who does own that game? Nobody knows... (insert mysterious music here)**

**Summery: And how could he answer that? That one question that had lay between them all these years, yet had never been voiced. Severus had never before asked him why. -Albus remembers.**

**Series: None**

**A/N: Enjoy!**

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"_Caeum videre iussit, et erectos ad sidra tollere vultus."_

"His bid them look at the sky and lift their faces to the stars."

Ovid.

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**Echoes**

_Red light... Silver instruments shattered around him as he faced down his Potions Master's angry glare. "Why?"_

_And how could he answer that? That one question that had lay between them all these years, yet had never been voiced. Severus had never before asked him why. "You let me come to this! I'm suffering for you!"_

"_It's necessary," The Headmaster told the other, though not really believing it himself. He never really believed that. It was simply easier._

_Easier to deny his dark child happiness, than to admit that he had failed the boy. Easier to let him go out to the monster time and time again than to shelter him from evil. Easier to never tell him that he loved him than to breach the carefully guarded professional relationship between them. Easier to let his child hurt than to face his accusing stare._

_He had always taken the easy road with Severus, always wondering how things could be different, yet never changing a thing. He had never had the right to call this one his child, but his heart didn't care._

_He'd betrayed Severus, time and time again. It was about time the younger wizard questioned why._

"_Is it?" That voice was laden with ice, colder than Albus had ever heard._

"_Yes. You know it yourself. You suffer so that everyone else might not. It's only fair."_

_The look on Severus's face broke his heart. He didn't want to make his child sad, but he had to make him understand. This wasn't about him! Or was it? "Why me?"_

"_Because you're the one who's fallen."_

"_I gave you everything! When will it be enough!" _

_Green light... "Not yet, Severus." His treacherous mouth, never saying what he wanted to say. Always destroying here, never building._

_Severus stared at him. Silent once again, his eyes telling all. 'I hate you.'_

_And he didn't blame the boy at all._

_His child left the room in a swirl of robes as always. He was angry again, but there was nothing Albus could do. The words 'I'm sorry' stuck in his throat as the door slammed to a close behind his child._

"_If only you knew." But he didn't, for the words were spoken to an empty room, never to the one they were intended for. But it didn't have to be this way._

_Dynamite... He leapt to his feet, this time to fix the problems he had wrought. He'd been hurting his child long enough. Albus fled the room to find the other stalking towards his dungeons. "Severus!" he called. _

_His child turned towards him, his eyes ever accusing, never forgiving. "I'm sorry."_

_Severus didn't say a word. He rushed to his child and pulled him into an embrace. "I'm so sorry, Child. I'm so sorry..." The younger wizard didn't say a word. He just stood there stiffly, until he pushed the Headmaster away._

_Albus wondered if Severus was surprised to see the tears on his face and then he wondered if it even mattered at all. "Will you forgive me?"_

_Boom._

"_It's too late." Severus turned away once more to his dark cold dungeons._

_And Albus let him go. It was too late... Too late to fix things now..._

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Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry awoke with a start to the sound of a sob. Who would be crying in his room?

_Had one of the students gotten hurt and by some miracle found his quarters? Are his staff members alright?_

_Red light..._ Disoriented, and strangely depressed, it wasn't long before Albus realized the source of the noise was himself. The dream came back to him then, crashing down upon him his greatest regret.

Severus Snape: the bravest man he'd ever met. And the one he'd hurt the most.

Severus had been ever respectful to him, following his orders even when they were too much to bear. He never complained of discomfort, that just wasn't his way. But those dark eyes... his eyes, always held Albus in their accusing stare. Condemning him for the pain he'd put their owner through, conveying the hate that he felt for the old man that destroyed his life.

_Green light... _Those eyes accused him still, in the recesses of his mind, even when the owner wasn't around anymore to feel the pain that the kindly old headmaster had inflicted on him. The scars remained; ever after the man had faded away.

More tears fell down his face as he remembered his lost child, the one he had lead to slaughter. It was the price of spying, he knew, had always known even before he sent his child on that death mission of his.

And Severus had paid, with everything he had. Death was the only reward for heroes such as he, the real ones that give everything for tomorrow.

Albus regretted sending Severus out to Voldemort to do his dirty work. But that had never stopped him. He continued to allow the other to suffer.

_Dynamite..._ Because he had a war to win. _War surely implemented harsher rules, than peace did,_ he would reason with himself. And he would always convince himself that he was doing the right thing.

But Severus was doing the better thing. He was suffering ten thousand times more than anyone else, yet he bore it. And he never asked for anything in return.

Albus wished he would have asked... just one time, for something back... for some kind of reward. Just so he could sleep once more, just so he could quell the angry voices of his conscience. Just so he could believe that he had not completely failed his child.

But he never had. He never would again.

Albus let his eyes slip closed once more; let the darkness overtake him again, let his mind be overcome with dreams of everything that should have been.

But would never be, except in dreams.

_Boom..._

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**Lo ha terminido.**

**A/N: Don't you just love how eerie a child's game can be when put in the right context? In fact some of the best known games have the creepiest beginnings. (Ring around the Rosie, anyone?)**

**But anyways, don't forget to review! **


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